Month: December 2018

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Assignment 1 – Complete!

Having taken an age to get into this assignment, I actually got quite hooked by the concept in the end.

I am actually quite pleased with the set of images I’ve produced.  They have generated quite a lot of conversation between my family over Christmas and I had a room of about 10 people arguing about which were real and which not.

My biggest reflection comes from the fact that feedback and discussion helped my refine some of the images and think more about how to present them.  This is something I will utilise in future assignments.  I also reflect on how much I enjoy manipulating images and making something new from what is already there.

and finally, I opened the introduction of “on being a photographer’ by David Hurn and Bill Jay and came across this quote from Abraham Maslow:

The purpose of life is to become actually what we are potentially”

I love this quote and it will be my new year’s resolution!

To see Assignment 1 – Two sides of the Story – click here

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Assignment 1 – Two sides of the Story – Ideas and Planning (i)

https://www.bjp-online.com/2018/05/dorley-brown-corners/


Sandringham Road & Kingsland Road 15th June 2009
 10:42am – 11:37am, from The Corners © Chris Dorley-Brown

Corners ideas

I have been working on an idea inspired by Chris Dorley-Brown’s Corner’s series.   It also reminded me of an image I liked when I was doing EYV, by Guy Bourdin.  

“The aim of the assignment is to help you explore the convincing nature of documentary, even though what the viewer thinks they see may not in fact be true.”

brief for assignment from Context & Narrative p 45

I have played with the idea of taking images of corners in the town where I live. The first set will be the real images and second set will be ‘reconstructed’ corners.

These four images are the first I’ve tried to test my idea, the first two images are the real images and the second two are ‘reconstructed’.  The third images is an amalgamation of the first two images and the fourth image is a mirror image of the second image, but I have reversed all of the signs so that they still read properly.

The fact that these were taken on dull grey days, means that the light is flat and the sky is almost monotone.  This makes it easier to merge the images so I think I will use that idea for the rest of the set.

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Assignment 1 – Two sides of the Story – Ideas and Planning

So having thought about the Yangtze River examples, and the different approaches taken by the various photographers, I like the idea of exploring the town I live in from two points of view.  I moved the south coast in my late 20s so don’t have the benefit of school acquired knowledge of the area.  I have photographed the seafront quite a lot and used the promenade for “The Square Mile”, the first assignment in my last course but was more interested in how people use the space.

I’ve decided to research the history of the town to see if I can use this as the perspective for the first set of images.

A history of Littlehampton: [accessed 14.12.18]   http://www.localhistories.org/littlehampton.html

Old pictures of Littlehampton [accessed 14.12.18]:   https://www.gravelroots.net/history/199.html#here

On reflection: I am going to park this idea, as I don’t think it meets the brief, but I do like it, so want to record it in order to remember at a later date

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Assignment 1 – Two sides to the Story – Research

Eureka!

I have been struggling with this piece, trying to think of something inivitive and yet simple.  I have used my new job as an excuse not to get on with it! to be fair it has been a bit, but I was really struggling with what story?, how will I find the time.

As a proverbial ‘kick up the bum’ to try and get myself back on track, I decided to have a look at some other students blogs to see how they had approached this.  In doing so I came across some tutor feedback to one student which I think became my eureka moment!

“Overall Comments
. . . . . . This assignment is essentially about the same subject matter, but shot in two different ways. It is a test of the input of the photographer to produce two viewpoints (often in both senses of the word). To see yourself and your work objectively like this – questioning how you produce work and what this communicates – is a difficult task . . . . .

https://scottishzoecontextandnarrative.wordpress.com/2018/05/11/assignment-1-response-to-tutor/

source: https://scottishzoecontextandnarrative.wordpress.com/2018/05/11/assignment-1-response-to-tutor/ [accessed 14.12.18]

“Suggested reading/viewing
I suggest you look at three projects on the Yangtze river. Comparing different photographers work in this way should illustrate how it is the photographer and (in this case) their differing methodologies, which can produce very different outcomes. This relates directly to this assignment, where the subject matter can be largely similar, yet the results diverse. The Yellow River by Zhang Kechun http://www.zhangkechun.com/the-yellow-river/  Mother River by Yann Wang Preston http://www.yanwangpreston.com/projects/images and Nadav Kander’s The long river https://www.lensculture.com/articles/nadav-kander-yangtze-the-long-river  I recommend reading On Being a Photographer: a Practical Guide by David Hurn and Bill Jay, LensWork Publishing, Portland (2007). This book is more about a photographer’s approach, attitude and their mind-set, rather than technicalities (as the title might suggest).”

Looking at the three examples above, I was particularly struck by the work of Nadav Kander but also the difference in the approaches to the three bodies of work.  Some subtle and some less so.  Kander was definitely struck by the pace of change and how people were feeling because of it, where as Wan Preston’s images were very structured and placed based.

This has given me a much clearer idea of my goal with this set of images now.  I found a cheap copy of ‘On being a photographer’ so will have a look at that when it arrives and in the meantime will have a think about my subject for this assignment.